Posted on: April 8th, 2022 Roland in Moonlight

I’ve long resonated with the Benedictine maxim “Always we begin again.” After three decades of passionate struggle to touch the profoundest mysteries of philosophy and theology, alas, I still at times feel lost at sea. I’m pretty sure that Socrates (even in old age) would have felt the same.

The Preacher (Qoheleth) channeled a similar spirit in the book of Ecclesiastes when he said “Of the making (or reading) of books there is no end.” Indeed, the finite time allotted to man is dwarfed by the number of books I desire to read.

Enter David Bentley Hart’s Roland in Moonlight. Not unlike the that of the intellectual biography, there is something about the genre of this book (intellectual fiction?) that I find quite helpful. Helpful in clarifying or confirming certain basic “hunches” that I’ve had, but seen only hazily.

For example, Roland’s (note: Roland is a dog!) discussion of recognition on page 31 is only the second instance of a rigorous thinker articulating “what I have thought” about recognition (the first being Catherine Pickstock’s Repetition and Identity). That this discussion also employs the term “eidetic” only adds to my cognitive rest.

So then, intellectual biography and intellectual fiction: these are two genres I find quite helpful in clarifying and especially confirming certain emerging convictions of mine which I nevertheless grasp only hazily, often doubting the solidity of my footing.

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Filed under: Book Notes (& articles, too), philosophy | Comments Off on Roland in Moonlight

Posted on: April 1st, 2022 Deep Hope within the Episcopal Church

It is easy to get discouraged in the Episcopal Church for a whole variety of reasons. Yet, these two videos (this one and this one)—which, somehow, had escaped my notice—are so, so good.

In the first one Ellen Davis speaks of Scripture as that which prompts God’s people to begin to imagine and speak in primordially refreshing ways.

In the second one Bishop Curry refers to the sacrament of Holy Eucharist as “the sacrament of unity,” that which can heal our deepest estrangements.

Therein lies my hope, in this fragmenting, VUCA culture. Thanks be to God!

(I’m grateful to the Society of Scholar-Priests for the role they played, I think, in making these vids a reality.)

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Filed under: the Christian Life / Prayer, theology / ecclesiology | Comments Off on Deep Hope within the Episcopal Church